


Neverlost Bay

by Zigzagwanderer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternative Universe - Seaside, Armitage is a Puppeteer, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo is a Stage Magician, Kylux Positivity Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25065436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigzagwanderer/pseuds/Zigzagwanderer
Summary: I really wanted to put something out for KPW, because we all need some positivity right now. Thanks for reading!xxx
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 33
Kudos: 14
Collections: Kylux Positivity Week 2.0





	1. Chapter 1

“So that’s that.” Mike Taka swished his tail through the chilly frills of the water’s edge. His twin sister Millicent laid her head on his shoulder. “No more _‘Fasma’s Frolics’._ ” 

The harlequin-patchworked tent, the venerable, bejewelled knob at the end of the candy-cane pier, was gone. 

So, for that matter, was the come-hither sparkle of the ticket booth. And the dainty, cup-cake colours of the concession stands. And, finally, dreadfully, the grand old pier itself, fought over to foamy flinders by the gluttonous gods of fire and water. 

“The whole bloody thing was a dusty old tinderbox, just waiting for a spark.” General Hucks had a martial voice, whether in the circus ring or out of it. 

A few of the townsfolk, sat wearily upon their upturned buckets, glared disapprovingly his way. If he hadn’t been so dashing and determined while helping to fight the inferno, there might well have been trouble. 

“I mean, Victorian gas-lamps? Really? Musty old paper billboards? And sawdust that got literally _everywhere_.” Hucks wriggled pointedly in his soaked jodhpurs. His flaming eyebrows, that featured so magnificently on those billboards, had, at one point, very nearly been aflame. 

He glanced up coolly at the Ringmaster. “Financially speaking, I expect the whole damn thing burning down has done you a favour?”

The sea held its breath. 

Madame Fasma scowled, and then used her whip to expertly put out Huck’s ill-timed cigar. 

A few of the onlookers applauded. 

“As if I could afford _insurance_ on top of tinsel and trapeze tape.” Madame spat, and stomped away in her big silver boots. 

The sea let itself go, and huffed indignantly against the shingle. 

The small town of Neverlost Bay fanned out from the seafront like an intricate antlering of coral, and Madame Fasma, like all the rest of them, had digs in one of the many sand-blasted hotels that backed onto the dunes.

“I just found my wand.” A tall figure had appeared quietly, very close by the General’s side. He holstered the black stick into his waistband, and swatted out the parts of his cloak that were still afire. “Did I miss much?” 

“Only General Hucks being an idiot,” Little Ray had to push her way between the two men to follow her mother up the beach. “Do either of you know how much it costs to build a helter-skelter these days?”

Hucks frowned. “No. But I think ours was faulty anyway. It went upwards instead of down.”

“Exactly,” Little Ray cried to the smouldering moon, and danced away, shedding cinders and spangles from her stiff net skirts. 

“She’s right, and we all know it.” Mike watched her fly, taking his heart with her. “ _Fasma’s Frolics_ were unique. And antique.” 

Millicent sighed. Her ears twitched. “An irreplaceable combination. You can’t rebuild the library of Alexandria out of e-readers and printed pizza-place menus.” 

On the promenade, the Fire Chief was finishing up thanking his volunteers. Many of the Frolics crew had dawdled back down to sob their farewells into the surf. 

Hucks waved away the free tea and biscuits that the fish-and-chip shop owner was handing around, and drank deeply from his hip flask instead. Seeing The Great Renascence was shivering and soaked, he passed it over.

“And don’t you _dare_ give me that look, Ben,” Hucks hissed at him. “When you are as much to blame for all this as I am.”

Chief Bakker eventually called them over to where all the salvage had been stacked. 

“Tide might wash up a tightrope or two yet,” he said sorrowfully. “But reckon that’s about all we’ll recover.”

Hucks wrinkled up his nose. Bakker smelt as if he kept grizzly bears as pets, although nobody had so much as seen him with a chihuahua. 

“So, er, Chief,” he said. “Any theories yet, as to how this, er, incident occurred?”

“Well now, we did get some reports of anomalous weather, right here over the bay, just before the blaze broke out.” The Chief pulled thoughtfully at the place where his beard became his sideburns became his moustache. “Some kind of freakish electrical storm, by all accounts.” 

He looked from the puppeteer to the stage magician. “Guess that’s what’s going down on the paperwork, unless you two boys have anything to add?”

The Great Renascence shrugged, and glanced at Hucks, who looked even paler than usual. 

“Bright blue lightning, you say? Ridiculous,” he scoffed. “Next you’ll be saying that aliens from another galaxy are involved.”

Hurriedly, he down bent to scour through the pile of damp debris. 

A huge paw of a hand thudded down on his back. 

“Now, General Hucks,” Bakker growled. “It’s common knowledge that you and your mystical colleague right here have something of a…rivalry going on.”

Hucks grimaced. “All great performers trash-talk each other, Chief. Call it…artistic temperament.” 

Bakker’s grip tightened. “And I can respect that, boys, especially with entertainers of your calibre. But if I ever find out that it was you two, playing one of those mean-ass pranks on one another like you’ve done all this last summer season, if _that’s_ somehow lead to _this_ …” 

“Good Lord.” Hucks was squinting painfully down at the recovered flotsam. “They’re _here_.”

The white domed helmets of his _‘Marvellous Marching Marionettes’_ gleamed back at him from their storage box. Hucks rubbed a few smudges of ash from their furturistic armour. “Somebody must have rescued them…”

Bakker unhanded Hucks, who knelt tenderly beside his miniature mannikins. 

The Great Renascence crouched down too. “I’m really glad, Armitage,” he said, gently. “I’d have hated for you to have lost these little guys.”

“Well, they’re just silly toy soldiers, really.” Hucks was blinking rapidly. “Strings and scrap metal.”

“Armitage, people go crazy for all your cute little War Games. The pincer movements and flanking attacks and defensive shoot-and-scoots…they’re adorable…”

He smiled softly at the General. The General smiled back.

A seagull sashayed over in the silence and pecked up a waterlogged hotdog. 

The Great Renascence leaned over. He carefully straightened a little laser rifle that one of the tiny troopers was holding. “There,” he said.

Hucks rested a hand on the magician’s back, to steady him. Tucked the magician's long hair back behind his ears, so that he could see what he was doing.

“Thank you, Ben,” he murmured. 

Then he stood up and gave the Chief a stiff little bow. “And thank you, Mr Bakker.”

“Don’t mention it, boy. Whole town did what we could. I’m only sorry we didn’t find one single prop of yours, Mr Renascence, sir.” He tilted his immense, shaggy head. “Not a trick top-hat or a spring-loaded white dove or a marked set of completely-ordinary playing cards…Why, anyone would think your act was really and genuinely _magic…_ ”

“Er, yes. Well. I’m just…surprised that anyone cares,” Hucks interrupted, hauling The Great Renascence to his feet. “I mean, for a shabby vaudeville show such as ours.”

“Part of the place, _The Frolics_. Always been here, in one shape or another.” Chief Bakker scratched behind one hairy ear. “I myself was Madame’s fire-breathing act, many years ago.”

“You don’t say?”

“Had to leave, to my eternal regret. Kept singeing my, er, whiskers.”

“Ah.” Hucks cleared his throat, which suddenly felt horribly full of fur. “Well, obviously that was before I came here,” he rubbed at his forehead. “It’s odd, but I can’t ever quite seem to remember exactly when that was…”

_“Ah. Chief Bakker, there you are.”_

The disconsolate crowd parted, as if bothered by a brittle breeze. Silently, a fancy, bone-white car had sailed along the seafront and docked itself in the middle of a municipal flower bed, crushing the campion and destroying the moon-daisies. 

"Overestimating your chances of success, as usual," the thin man in the expensive grey coat continued, as he strode, inexorably, towards them all.


	2. Chapter 2

Chief Bakker wound the Fire Department’s only hose back around himself, slinging it like a bandolier across one enormous shoulder. 

“Will Tarkin,” he grunted at the official. “Now what brings you out of your top-floor office over on Red-Tape Road?”

“Most amusing,” the man neatened his cuffs. “I came to pay my last respects, of course.”

One gloved hand gestured towards the black water, where a menagerie of merry-go-around cryptids still bobbed about on the chop, tentacling and hoofing at the waves, in one last, nightmarish hurrah. “The whole structure will be inoperational for the rest of the season, I assume?” 

“Yes, Councillor Tarkin, the pier’s gone, but there are other venues we could use, with a bit of imagination.” Mike jumped down from the breakwater, executing a perfect back flip. Millicent caught the clipboard from him. There was already an impressive set of contingency plans on it. 

“Pastor Poe has already offered us his Church Hall,” Milli purred persuasively. “Or we could set up over at Uncle Owen’s farm. Bit muddy near all those moisture harvesters, but…”

Tarkin started laughing. It was more terrifying than the screeching of the pier as it had collapsed. 

“I don’t think Neverlost Council will be permitting anything like _that_.” 

“Hey.” Mr Fin paused as he collected up all of his empty cups and saucers. “Come on now. Nothing brings in the promenade punters like a bit of razzle dazzle. We’ve always needed _Fasma’s Frolics_ , and right now, they need _us_ …” 

“What this town needs is modern, money-making entertainment,” Tarkin interrupted. “Which is why my new amusement arcade will be open for business first thing on Monday morning.”

“What?” Mr Fin let a plateful of custard creams crash onto the cobbles. The winged philosophers nearby squawked about the opportunity of tragedy.

“Mercifully,” Tarkin continued, “I have connections to a supplier of coin-operated gaming machines, and so, thanks to Arthur Vader Enterprises, we may yet be able to save August.”

“Not sure we want your one-armed banditry, Willy,” the Chief snarled. “Vader’s nothing but a con-artist. And his slots and grabbers are nothing but a cheat and a scam…” 

“And what choice do you have?” Tarkin interrupted, icy as a pirate doubloon left lying at the bottom of the bay; the cursed kind, the kind that divers wish they’d never brought back up, that kind that the bloodshed of base privateering cannot be washed from, no matter how long the sea tries and tries and tries. 

Nobody had an answer to that.

General Hucks happened to be standing with his hand adjacent to the waistband of The Great Renascence. He felt the wizard’s magic wand begin to thrum beneath his palm.

“Ben. No, you mustn’t,” Hucks whispered. “We have to keep a low profile.” 

He pulled the angry magician away, and they snuck down past the kaleidoscopic beach huts to the public lavatory building. Behind a hunchbacked hydrangea, pastel petals gone ruddy in the dark, the two men stood grimly in a puddle that was trying, valiantly, to smell like a pine forest. 

Neon-eyed vermin skittered playfully along the pipes. 

After the revelations they had made to one another that very afternoon, it seemed likely they had been in worse situations, only neither could really recall the particulars. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” The Great Renascence backed the General into a dank rectangle of shadow. Their heads bent forward as if they had been _made_ to plot and scheme together. “I’ve controlled myself since I got… _here_ …but around you it just seems natural to let go…” 

Hucks brought the uncanny material of the cloak up around both of them. 

The sea-fog would be pouring in soon; a cold, clammy porridge to fill the bowl of the Bay.

“I suppose I can forgive you,” Hucks said. “It has been quite a day.” 

There was the noise of continued argument from the beach.

The Great Renascence tentatively encircled the General in his arms. “I feel like we’ve only just begun to find each other, Armitage, and already things are kind of a disaster…”

Hucks stood at ease, but cautiously, as though it’d been a long time since he’d authorised himself that luxury. 

“I know, I know,” he breathed, voice catching when the embrace grew even more intimate, a merging of knees and boots and finally, _finally_ , a brushing together of belts and buttons. “What I said back there…about an old tinderbox, just waiting for a spark…”

“Old?” The Great Renascence moved his mouth lower, so that he was whispering along a warm jawline, into a sensitive ear. “Do you even know how old you are?” 

Hucks shivered, and then laughed, softly. “No, actually. I only know my name because it was stamped onto the toolbox I had with me when I…woke up, that first day I found myself here.”

“I don’t remember where I was born, who my parents were…but somehow, General, I remember you…”

“It’s been terrible…” Hucks admitted. “I feel like _something_ took _everything_ away from me…Except, by some miracle, _you_ , Ben. It’s as if the one thing I was allowed to keep was the most significant person in my life…”

They kissed, then, sweetly.

Then, not so sweetly. 

A faintly flickering light began to crackle from the wizard’s fingertips, blue as the sea-holly that pricks the tumbling lovers in the dunes, blue as the mermaid’s hair that the cliff-swallows use to build their nests. 

Where the large, gentle, trembling touch traced along the General’s spine, and around his waist, and under the military jacket he habitually wore, the cerulean sparkles softened, making Hucks tingle and wriggle and moan. 

After a moment he shook his blazing head. “Ben…I hate to ask you to stop…But you’d better stop…”

“Sorry…” With an effort, The Great Renascence dimmed the display down to a few, wispy shimmers. 

“We’re going to need to practise…er, this.” Hucks swallowed. “A lot. It’s imperative. You know, so that you can completely master your…powers.” He took a half step backward. “In private would be best, of course.”

“Yes.” The Great Renascence agreed. “I was thinking just now that maybe it’s time I moved out of Miss Leia’s place? I mean, she’s a great landlady, but there are those nice flats overlooking the harbour? Maybe if I had someone to share the rent with?” 

Hucks nodded. “That sounds like a splendid tactic. Combine forces. You know, I have the impression that neither of us has had much freedom, wherever it was we were _before_.”

He’d been continuing to hold The Great Renascence’s hands, almost as if he knew how much the magician liked that, without even realising. The frosty fire flared up again, blue as the bubble-gum ice-cream they used to serve from the kiosk on the pier, the kind that drove the seagulls even crazier than usual. 

“Armitage, _please_ …” The Great Renascence whispered breathily, indicating his wand. “We really need to do something about _this_ …”

“I couldn’t agree more, Ben,” Hucks lifted one of his famous, flaming eyebrows and winked. “But first, we should probably try to fix the mess we’ve made of _The Frolics_ .”


	3. Chapter 3

_Earlier that summer season…_

Like a roller-coaster ride running around a Moebius strip, the end was also the beginning.

One minute there was obliterating pain, a sense of being _emptied out_ into the universe.

The next, he was fully conscious, and being considered coldly by a pair of implacably hungry eyes. 

His hair fell away from his face; a tenebrous torrent. He heard his own voice, equally dark and flowing, as if for the very first time.

“ _Where_ , and also _who_ the hell am I?” 

The seagull squawked, and shimmied backwards off the window-sill, scattering sand and feathers. 

“Hey? Ben Solo in there?” There was a thudding at the sunrise-striped door. 

“Er…yeah?” _Ben_ blinked, and crawled his fingers up over his cheek; the scar was, indeed, enough to deter wildlife. 

“We all thought you should know…” The voice spoke again from outside the tiny room, accompanied by a strange wheeling sound. “Miss Leia kinda goes supernova if any of us skip breakfast, so best get down here, buddy.”

“Er, ok. Thanks.”

Remembering the part of his dream where he was being drained of some vital essence, he dug around beneath the herbaceous border of his bedcovers. He was naked. But spotlessly clean. 

And, although it was a relief to know that his first duty on his first day wouldn’t be locating a launderette, a certain monkish melancholy seemed to fit him all too well, like the absurdly ruffled shirts and skin-tight satin trousers he found hanging up in the wardrobe. 

Amnesia aside, one thing he _knew_ for damn sure was that… _before,_ he had been both unhappy and unwanted, and mostly, he guessed, by himself. 

The staircase leading to the garden was a crooked corkscrew, that eventually spun him onto a cresting sea of sand-dunes. Beyond the arching sprays of cape buckthorn, and the whistling windbreak of driftwood, a savannah of bay-water stirred grassily in the shimmering light of morning. 

“Fancy a cuppa?” A man with a grey goatee beckoned him over. Jewel-bright cushions studded the white gold. His simple smock was patchworked with paint. “Hi. I’m Luca. My sister runs this place.” He offered Ben a lumpen, hand-thrown pottery mug, filled to the brim with some steaming brew. “And by your aura, I’d say _you_ are our new magician.” 

Ben stayed silent, seeing as screaming seemed to be out of the question; the motley of people all smiling at him seemed chaotic, but also contented. 

Some were gulping down butterscotch pancakes, while others swallowed swords. 

But everybody said hello. 

So Ben said hello back. 

“Hey, buddy, glad to see you’re already in your stage clothes,” the girl who’d summoned him earlier metronomed past on her unicycle. Roses bloomed on her skin in posies of coloured ink. “Dunno how they rocked in your old place, but our matinee show’s at three sharp, ok?” 

Jugglers juggled. Contortionists contorted.

Ben stood bewildered beneath the honeysuckled pergola. “Uh, Luca, er, if you’re some kind of counsellor, or guru, maybe you can explain…” 

“Luca? Pastor Poe called for you.” A woman juggernauted out of the kitchen door, dispensing fresh orange juice and maternal pats on the head as she ploughed through the performers. “Wants to commission a mural for his sacred space. Something galactic. I told him you’d pop around later. After you’ve meditated your way into taking out the garbage, please?” 

“Sure, sis, sure. Just making our new recruit welcome.” 

Ben felt something drape over his shoulders.

Something heavy, yet flexible and flowing.

“And here you go, Ben,” Miss Leia smiled. “I washed your cloak, ready for your first show.”

The cloth unfurled in an obsidian shiver, and for a second all the merry birdsong and the vibrant piping of the calliope seemed to cease. The dew on the sea-grass dimmed and the sunlight looked more jaundiced than joyful. And there was something alluring to this sudden shading of the world, something familiar and comprehensible.

“Thank you,” Ben whispered. 

Then the scent of laundry starch and fresh detergent swung the single yellow sun back into its plain and ordinary focus.

“No problem.” Miss Leia brushed off a stray sequin. “I mean, what’s a wizard without his cloak, right? And his wand.” She held out a stocky cylindrical device. “Don’t worry,” she winked, reassuringly, “I know all you Magic Circle types have your trade secrets, so I didn’t do anything more than give it a quick dusting.” 

Ben smiled weakly and slipped into his belt. The cool black handle felt good against his hip, even if he hadn’t a notion what to do with it.

“Excuse me,” a sharp elbow collided with Ben’s back. “But you’re very much in my way.” 

Ben stepped sideways into the clanking embrace of a wind-chime. The guy, wearing cut-off army fatigues and some kind of dog-tag jewellery, stopped pointedly tapping one boot, and brushed by. 

He fell gracefully to his knees by Luca’s beanbag. 

“So sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Sky-Walker, but I had to calibrate the gears for the little finger up in my room.” He scratched through his copper-coloured short-back-and-sides with a futuristic screwdriver. “It’s far too dirty and noisy and crowded down here for precision work like that.” 

Luca gave the guy his hand to finish working on, and Ben realised that from the wrist down it was an advanced-looking prosthetic. 

Miss Leia gave Ben a little nudge. “Ben, this is General Hucks, genius puppeteer.”

“And just about the finest engineer you’ll ever meet,” her brother wiggled his robotic fingers. “If it hadn’t been for him building me this beauty, I’d never have held a paintbrush again.”

“Really, it’s nothing. I’m a great admirer of your space-scapes, sir.” Hucks glowered around him at the rest of the gang. “And, unlike some slackers I could mention, I grow extremely bored without a proper challenge.”

He stood to attention, and looked Ben up and down. “And what costume do you call that?”

Ben glanced at a playbill tacked to a tree. His own ruined image glared back at him.

“I’m, er, The Great Renascence.” Ben found himself combative and couldn’t quite think why. General Hucks was gorgeous, but also appalling. 

“Ah, I see. Sleight of hand? Mesmerism?” The General held his hands behind his back. The grey cotton pulled tight across his slender chest. “How terribly archaic.” 

“Time-honoured, actually,” Ben snapped, trying not to stare. “ _Normal_ people need a little hocus-pocus in their lives.”

“Not as much as they need cars,” Hucks bit back, “or clocks, or toasters, or bridges…”

“…or _personal massagers_ ,” the unicyclist chipped in brightly, playing to the crowd. Everyone laughed. 

“Seriously,” she deadpanned, “this guy here can fix anything that…oscillates.” 

Ben noted dispassionately how the General’s sweet smattering of freckles disappeared as his cheekbones caught fire.

“Yes, well, Rosie,” he was trying to explain. “It was a simple ratchet malfunction. You must have overworked the motor, um, what I meant is…”

“Yeah, General,” Rosie rolled her eyes theatrically. “I’m sure everyone gets the picture. I’ll go easy on my… _stress-relief equipment_ in future.”

Some of the aerialists whistled and hooted, like so many flying, leotarded birds. 

One of the brass band did a comedic slide on their trombone. 

“How completely hilarious,” the puppeteer sniffed, and bent over to pack up his spanners. 

Ben reached blindly for a toasted teacake. 

“I’d love to stay and join in with your utter childishness, but some of us have technical matters to attend to.” Hucks all but saluted to the Sky-Walkers, but let his green gaze flick acid at Ben. “Not everyone can rely upon blatantly deceiving their audience.”

And he marched back towards the hotel, his pert retreat sending a challenging thrill up and down Ben’s spine, and then lower still. 

“Is he always that…stiff?” Ben flushed for no reason. And definitely not because the weird electrical buzzing was continuing to build all over, as if the haughty engineer had flicked on a current someplace deep inside his body.

“Y’know Ben," Miss Leia said encouragingly, "you didn’t have any stage props delivered to the pier, so why don’t you ask Hucks to help you create some? He’s been here a few weeks, so he could even show you around a bit?”

Ben saw on the playbill that The Great Renascence and the Marvellous Marionettes shared equal billing. Suddenly, it seemed somehow…untenable. 

“I think I usually work best alone,” he said.

A flaming arrow shot between him and Luca.

With a single thought, Ben easily plucked it out of the air and then made it fly back obediently the way it had come.

“Allow for the offshore winds, Biggs, remember?” Luca was yelling over his shoulder. 

The tingling in Ben’s bones intensified. His vision blurred. 

Miss Leia was sighing. _“It’s kind of a shame; Armitage is just like a lot of showbiz folk, actually pretty shy, but good at hiding it.”_

Her brother was unfolding himself from the lotus position. _“He_ never _talks to people straight off like that; anyone would think he and Ben went way back…”_

Neither of the siblings had actually spoken, Ben realised, but he had heard them just the same.

He wrapped his cloak around himself, the edges of it flirting wickedly with the salty breeze. Maybe this mind-reading gig wasn’t going to be quite so tough after all. 

“Pretty?” Ben snorted, distractedly. He stalked off down the garden path. “And that wasn’t him talking to me...”

The brass band launched into a booming ceremonial march.

“… _that_ was a declaration of _war_.”


End file.
